


Bro's Eye View

by sburbanite



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Growing Up, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Mind Control, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-06
Updated: 2016-04-07
Packaged: 2018-05-31 15:12:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6475285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sburbanite/pseuds/sburbanite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cal's always been there for you, even when you weren't sure you wanted him to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. "Imaginary Fiend"

Cal has been with you for as long as you can remember. 

He was with you when some stranger plucked you off the streets and delivered you to the local children’s home. He was there to creep out every prospective family that might want to adopt you. 

He was there when they shook their heads and moved on to other children, ones that made eye contact and didn’t talk to puppets. 

He told you that you didn’t need them. 

THESE PEOPLE ARE WEAK. 

WHY SHOULD YOU NEED A BUNCH OF NANNYING, FUSSING MORONS? 

You don’t need them, bro. You’ve never needed anyone. 

It’s not you, it’s them. Trust me, you’ll be fine on your own. 

ALL OF THIS TOUCHING. WITH THE PICKING UP AND THE HAIR STROKING. 

WHY IS IT HAPPENING? 

DO THEY HAVE SOME SICK FETISH FOR MONKEY SPAWN? 

D--> It does seem somewhat 100d that they wish to play the part of a lusus. 

D--> You are STRONG enough not to need a lusus, dirk. 

You oNlY need US. 

\-------------------------------------------- 

Cal always knew what to do. 

When you were five years old and some older kids put worms in your bed, he told you exactly what things to steal to make sure they never did it again. From the boy across from you, you took the lucky coin his father gave him before he died; from the bigger kid whose bed was next to yours, you took his prized porno mag. 

Cal told you to leave a note, saying that they’d get them back if they left you alone for a month. The older one had ignored it, laughed at it, so you’d taken the matches that were exactly where Cal said they would be and burned his magazine. His bed was full of charred pages when he went to bed at night, and you heard him crying to himself in the dark. 

None of them touched you after that. The other boy got his coin back. 

No-one messes with Dirk Strider. We’ve got your back, man. 

WE SHOULD HAVE SMOTHERED THE BIG ONE. 

D--> That’s a little %treme, even for such a gross show of disrespect. 

Trust me. Once you control their hearts and minds, they’ll never bother you again. 

CONTROL, YES. CONTROL IS WHAT WE DESERVE. 

WE WILL HAVE CONTROL. 

Jesus Christ, sound more like a fucking Bond villain, why don’t you? 

SHUT UP. YOU AREN’T EVEN REAL. 

YOU’RE JUST A FAKE PERSON. YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO EXIST, LET ALONE CRITICIZE ME. 

I DON’T LISTEN TO YOU. 

NOT EVEN HE DOES. 

OK, smart guy. I’m pretty sure he’s listening to us bickering like idiots right now. 

DO NOT MAKE FUN OF ME. JUST BECAUSE I AM NOT SMART. 

Dude, that’s not even what I was saying. Clean out your non-existant skull-holes and listen: 

The kid can hear us. We should shut the hell up. 

HoNk 

See? Even the halfwit agrees. 

FINE. I WILL DO THE TALKING FROM NOW ON. 

I AM THE ONE WITH THE MOST EXPERIENCE OF ADVERSITY. 

I WILL MAKE HIM STRONG. 

OR HE WILL DIE. 

Cal’s voices used to argue a lot, back when you were little. 

No matter what they said, though, it always helped. You knew what to do. You had a plan. Cal was your family and he’d take care of you. 

That was all you ever wanted in life, after all. 

\-------------------------------------------- 

Shortly before you turned 12, you found a pair of pointed sunglasses in the bargain bin at the local garage, passed over by the sunbathers of Houston until the autumn rain rolled in. They looked oddly familiar and when you tried them on, they had looked pretty damn cool. Or as cool as a two-dollar pair of stupid, pointed shades could look, which was not very cool at all. 

On a whim, you slipped them into your back pocket, like they’d been there all along, and casually sauntered out. There was something you liked about your reflection in the bathroom mirror. Something pleasingly ballsy about wearing eyewear so silly and not giving a fuck what anyone thought about it. 

You could tell that Cal approved, and you made sure to fistbump him as you got into bed that night. As they always did, coloured letters hovered in the back of your mind as you slept; the source-code ticking over beneath the veil of your dreams.


	2. Daydreams

Sometimes your thoughts were confusing; jumbles of words and phrasing that didn't seem to make any sense. A half-heard internal dialogue that came from nowhere and vanished into nothingness as soon as it resolved itself. Usually it resolved into a killer headache. 

Was I this much of a dork at this age? I don't remember being this scrawny and weak. 

YOU DID NOT EXIST, SARCASTIC SUNGLASSES. YOU HAVE NO AGE. 

OK, fine. Since you're going to be a fucking technophobe about it; was Dirk this much of a loser? 

NO. DIRK WAS THE CLOSEST THING TO AN INTERESTING PERSON. IN YOUR SHITSHOW OF A SESSION. 

I DON'T KNOW WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS ONE. HE IS A MESS. VERY DISAPPOINTING. 

There's nowhere to train here. Not to mention too many people. 

At this rate he'll never be ready when the game comes around again. 

I never thought I'd miss my goddamned prison of an apartment. 

HE'S LIKE A MIGHTY BEAST IN A FLIMSY CAGE. BEING FED A DIET OF DISGUSTING VEGETABLES. 

HE WILL NEED REAL FOOD. MEAT. SUGAR. A PLACE TO HUNT. 

Hmm. You might actually be right. 

I wonder how much of the clown's power we can use without damaging his mind. 

HoNk 

I AM ALWAYS RIGHT. IF I AM GIVEN LONG ENOUGH TO PURSUADE THE UNIVERSE OF MY SUPREMACY. 

When the bickering voices simmered away, always just below the level of conscious thought, you'd feel them as a creeping discomfort in your mind. 

Drawing and music kept it at bay. Sewing did too, and the social workers were more than happy to indulge your passion for crafts. After the first round of worried questioning, you'd fought the urge to make anything too phallic. You weren't always successful. 

Sometimes you'd find yourself muttering unfamiliar words under your breath. 

\-------------------------------- 

School was difficult. 

The actual school parts were easy; knowledge flowed effortlessly through your brain and onto the page, numbers danced for you like marionettes. It was almost too simple, and your teachers quickly became frustrated with your tendency to drift off, staring into space while your hand wrote the answers on autopilot. 

The difficult part was that you had to leave Cal in your locker, because the teachers didn't seem to like him. They looked at you strangely when you carried him around, as if there was something unhealthy about a twelve year old boy cradling his beloved puppet. His best and only friend. 

Other kids were no problem, the first one that tried to take Cal and dangle him out of reach got a punch to the gut that made him throw up all over his shoes. As he'd crouched in a puddle of vomit, you'd felt an odd itch in your palms. 

We gotta get the kid a sword. 

Punching people like a nineteenth century boxer is a strategy for buffoons with no self esteem. 

THAT'S BULLSHIT. YOU ARE THE BIGGEST MORON IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE. 

I WOULD KNOW. I WILL BE THERE FOR ALL OF IT. 

Hmm. The probability that you're talking out of our collective ass is roughly one million %. 

FISTS ARE THE WEAPON OF A WARRIOR. 

A TRUE MASTER OF THE DUDEBRO ARTS. NEEDS NOTHING BUT THE SMACK. OF SKIN ON SKIN. 

D--> Agreed. 

D--> A bow is a more e%quisite choice, however. 

Do you even hear yourself? That sentence couldn't get any gayer if it stuck a pretty pink parasol up its ass. 

I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU THINK. IT IS NOT GAY TO DELIVER A FIST FULL OF PAIN. TO THE PERSON WHO ORDERED IT. 

IF TWO MEN WISH TO TOUCH ONE ANOTHER SOFTLY ON THE CHEEK. MAYBE WHISPER THAT THEY WANT TO HOLD HANDS. BLUSHING AT THE MERE THOUGHT OF IT. THAT WOULD BE DIFFERENT. AND DECADENT. 

Amen to that, I guess. I forgot how vanilla your idea of pornography is. 

On the other hand, I'm hardly one to kinkshame. Nor is sweaty horse dude, for that matter. 

D--> I will have you know I am an afi%ionado of only the highest forms of musclebeast art. 

Sure you are, buddy. 

I noticed the kid doodles worryingly anatomically correct horse dicks in his books. 

Hardly a coincidence, if you ask me. 

Meanwhile, back at the fucking point. We should let him decide if he wants a bitchin' anime katana or not. 

You think you would like to get a bitchin' anime katana, although you have no idea why you decided that on the walk home from school. Swords are cool, though. Nobody would mess with you if you had a sword. You hefted Cal so that he was more comfortably seated on your shoulders, and daydreamed about shining blades all the way back to your miserable little dormitory. 

Somewhere at the back of your brain, you felt like you'd made an important decision. You felt strangely vindicated. 

How about you suck on my circuit boards, Calidork. The kid wants a sword. 

HE DIDN'T DECIDE. YOU DECIDED FOR HIM. STOP DOING THAT. 

Make me. 

Besides, it's for his own good.

Who else does he have to look out for him?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who gave herself ulnar tunnel syndrome from cycling? 
> 
> I'll give you a clue: fucking ow.


	3. Prince of Heart

You felt restless a lot of the time and sitting still became a slow kind of torture. The feeling built all day while you were chained to a desk, barely lifting as you walked home with your books bobbing uselessly in your bag. You never did homework, which was only fair, you thought, since you didn’t have a home. Leaving empty handed every day attracted too much attention, though, and attracting the attention of adults made the hairs rise on the back of your neck. You already got too much shit for carrying a puppet around all the time and for refusing to remove your shades indoors. 

A cut-down broom-handle makes a decent practice sword, albeit a light one, and moving with it felt incredibly natural. The names of techniques flashed through your brain, and you practiced each one until your muscles ached. You were good, really good, but it wasn’t  going to be enough. A stick isn’t a sword, and you’ll need a real one if you’re going to get faster. 

You were thirteen years old and you _knew_ you were going to be a swordsman. The fact that that wasn’t a legitimate career, that it wasn’t a marketable skill, that you’d never had a lesson in your life didn’t matter. It was your destiny to be the best. 

YOU WILL BE THE BEST, AND YOU WILL MAKE ME A FOE WHO IS WORTHY OF MY TIME. 

Was that a fucking pun? 

A WHAT? 

Never mind. Why do I even bother? 

\---------------------------------------- 

He was cute, the first boy who caught your eye. Not handsome, not yet, there was still too much roundness in his face, but he’d be handsome one day. He had green eyes, blonde hair and glasses, and he came up and talked to you after Math class. People didn’t talk to you much, but this kid could talk for hours. You’d nodded along happily, letting him sweep you away in a blissful torrent of words. His name was Simon. Simon didn’t seem to mind that you didn’t talk much. 

He even agreed that Cal was cool, especially when you’d shown him how you could make the puppet talk by putting your hand inside him. The voices weren’t like your own; sometimes they were confident and funny, sometimes hilariously blunt. Simon’s laughter was like music. 

One afternoon, you’d skipped out on English class with him, grabbing Cal so you could do an impromptu show, and he’d nervously grabbed your hand. It was warm and slightly sweaty, unlike yours (which were wearing fingerless leather gloves to keep the wood of your training stick from chafing), and you’d felt flutters of something hot and wonderfully uncomfortable in your chest when he looked at you. 

OH…THE CHILD IS TOUCHING ANOTHER ADOLESCENT IN A VERY…SALACIOUS WAY. 

Dude, they’re holding hands. I’m deeply uncomfortable with how much that turns you on. 

It seems like the kid’s into guys no matter what universe he’s in. 

This one even looks a little like Jake. It’s a cliché gay middle-school romance if ever I saw one. 

THERE IS A RESEMBLENCE TO THE GUN-TOTING IDIOT. I DON’T SEE WHAT THERE IS TO BE GAY ABOUT, THOUGH. THEY’RE JUST WANDERING THROUGH THE WOODS…HOLDING THEIR PATHETIC HUMAN GRABFLAPS. 

It looks pretty gay to me, man. Two dudes holding hands and looking meaningfully into each other’s eyes is the PG-13 dictionary definition of “gay as a rainbow unicorn.” 

ARE RAINBOW UNICORNS ESPECIALLY HAPPY CREATURES? I WOULD HAVE THOUGHT BEING RETARDED ABERRATIONS OF NATURE WOULD MAKE THEM HATE THEMSELVES. 

What? Gay. You know. Two dudes gettin’ it on. 

Happiness is irrelevant to whether or not the dicks touch, although you’re doing it wrong if that makes you unhappy. 

THAT’S WHAT “GAY” MEANS. 

Yeah. What did you think it meant? 

THAT. OBVIOUSLY. I WAS JUST MAKING SURE. 

OK then. Glad I could clear that up for you. 

Given that this is Texas in the late twentieth century, I’m surprised the mobs with torches and pitchforks haven’t shown up yet. 

Maybe they didn’t get the message on their giant 1980’s mobile phones. 

You weren’t sure about this. This was Texas. The idea that you might like Simon as more than just a friend was scary and it was one hell of a bad idea to admit to liking a boy if they didn’t like you back. The way he looked at you suggested he didn’t give a fuck about that, though. 

The way he asked if he could kiss you was an even bigger clue. 

WHAT ARE THEY DOING NOW? THIS IS FUCKING SCANDALOUS. WHY THE FUCK ARE THEY SMOOSHING THEIR DISGUSTING FACE HOLES TOGETHER LIKE THAT. 

Wow, score one for lil’ Dirk. 

Look at ‘em go. It seems he found one that’s actually into dudes this time around. 

WHY CAN’T I CLOSE MY EYES. I DON’T WANT TO SEE THIS. 

Oh be quiet, it’s cute as all hell. 

D-->Does anyone have a towel?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the short chapters...it just seems to be how it's working out.
> 
> Just a reminder that Jake told Caliborn that "Gay" meant happy, and nobody ever corrected him on that. :D

**Author's Note:**

> This'll be short, only a few chapters...  
> Short first chapter because of other commitments.


End file.
